BRATISLAVA, September 22, (WEBNOVINY) — Following their fruitless talks with Education Minister Eugen Jurzyca on Tuesday, trade unionists from Slovak schools will ask Prime Minister Iveta Radicova and Finance Minister Ivan Miklos to pump more money into the education system. “The minister called for talks with us, we have met, but the situation from the previous meeting has repeated and the minister argued that the government cannot allocate more money to meet our demands,” head of trade unions representing teachers, Jozef Luzak, said with regard to talks with Jurzyca. Therefore, he intends to send a letter to the prime minister and the finance minister, asking them for a meeting. Trade unionists will also initiate a meeting with the chairmen of parliamentary deputy clubs before the lawmakers pass the state budget for next year. “Hope dies last, we want to use arguments to convince [respective authorities] that the education sector is inadequately funded and we are at Europe’s tail-end regarding the portion of GDP allotted for education,” Luzak said.
Trade unions have threatened to go on strike and close schools unless the government satisfies their demands. The trade union leadership may decide on the strike at a meeting on October 6 if it has the written approval of half of 125,000 employees in the sector. Ninety regional trade unions‘ boards have received questionnaires that are presently being delivered to schools. The sheets should be returned by late September.
Trade unions representing teachers have been on strike alert for a few months. They presented their demands at a protest rally on September 13, when thousands of employees of schools and education facilities gathered in front of the Cabinet Office. Members and non-members of trade unions across Slovakia pooled efforts to remind the Cabinet of its pledges in the government program statement. They call for a systemic increase in funds pumped into education to attain a GDP portion allotted for the sector comparable to other EU states by the end of this electoral term. Furthermore, they want remuneration increase to secure growth of their real wages. The third requirement relates to the remuneration system, whereby pedagogues should get 1.2- to 1.6-fold the average wage in the national economy and the salaries of other employees should be comparable to similar wage categories in other sectors.
Trade unionists and the Education Minister debated these demands on Tuesday. “The Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sports informed trade unions’ representatives that a proposal to raise wages of teachers by 5.7 percent, considered by the ministry the maximum [possible increase] for now, is presently undergoing approval procedure,“ the ministry commented on the meeting. The increase in salaries of teachers will require over 40 million euros but the government is not considering raising wages of other [non-teaching] employees in the sector as of next year.
SITA